To facilitate collection of a large number of golf balls from a fairway, it is known to use golf ball retrievers. One type of golf ball retriever utilises a number of spaced discs mounted onto a common shaft. The spacing of the discs corresponds to the width of a golf ball so that as the discs move over a ground surface, golf balls are caught between adjacent discs. The golf balls are subsequently dislodged by a dislodging finger and are transferred to a collecting basket. The discs can either be ground engaging or can be mounted to a common shaft which terminates with a pair of ground engaging wheels to space the discs slightly above the ground surface. Devices of this type are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,995,759 (Hollrock), 3,823,838 (Gustafsson), 3,175,714 (Wittik), 2,792,955 (Summer), 2,365,540 (Fonken) and 4,792,271 (Akel).
Such retrievers suffer from a number of disadvantages. Firstly, to pick up golf balls the discs must be relatively closely spread and to allow efficient retrieving of golf balls from a fairway, a large number of discs are required spaced along a shaft. This increases the overall cost of the apparatus and increases its weight and therefore makes it unsuitable for use on certain fairways.
To overcome the above disadvantages, golf ball retrievers have been developed comprising a number of spaced collector wheels mounted to a common shaft with golf ball deflecting members being located between adjacent collector wheels to deflect golf balls towards a respective collector wheel. This obviated the requirement for a large number of discs or collector wheels to be present on the retriever as the deflector members would channel golf balls to a respective collector wheel. Examples of this type of retriever are found in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,658,637 (Bailey), 3,784,037 (Woodall), 2,812,871 (Woodall), 4,158,418 (Hayasahi) and 2,656,061 (Luckie).
A disadvantage with both the abovementioned known types of retrievers is that the discs or wheels are mounted to a common shaft which means that the discs or collector wheels are suitably only on relatively level surfaces and cannot track undulations in the ground surface.
For instance, golf balls tend to collect within small depressions or pockets in a fairway and the retrievers described above are not generally capable of entering into a pocket or depression to collect the golf balls but instead merely pass over the pocket or depression.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,605,005 (Wenzel) attempts to overcome the abovementioned disadvantage by providing a number of spaced collector wheels which are independently pivotally mounted to a cross bar. This allows each individual collector to track undulations in a ground surface independent of each other collector wheel. Guide members are spaced between collector wheels to guide golf balls to a respective collector wheel for retrieval.
A serious disadvantage with the Wenzel retriever is that the guide arms are rigidly attached to the retriever and are not able to track undulations in the surface independently of its respective collector wheel. As a consequence, the guide members tend to dig into the fairway surface when passing through an undulation or pockets which results in damage to the fairway, damage to the retrieving device, and clogging of the collector wheels with dirt and debris.
A similar disadvantage is found with golf ball retrievers having collector wheels spaced along a common axle and deflector members located between adjacent collector wheels although in the latter situation, the deflectors do not generally get damaged or dig into the fairway surface as these retrievers are not able to collect balls from pockets or depressions in a fairway.
Other retrievers are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,157,141 (Ryan) (utilizing a mat system), 3,102,647 (Bonney), French patent 2443-851 (utilising a paddle assembly) and U.S. Pat. No. 2,413,679 (Binder).
My earlier U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,383 describes a golf ball retriever having a number of collector wheels, each wheel being mounted to a separate arm which is pivotally coupled to a transverse frame member. The collector wheels are axially spaced apart, and to prevent golf balls from passing between collector wheels, deflecting assemblies are provided which are also pivotally mounted. While this retriever efficiently tracked the ground surface, in practice it was found to be relatively heavy due in part to the existence of two deflectors per collector wheel. Thus, for a typical fifteen wheel assembly, about twenty-eight deflectors were required.